Profile

Xinwen Fu, Director, i-SAFER

“The Department of Computer Science has world-class professors with varied research backgrounds and a friendly environment that fosters collaboration.”

Asst. Prof. Xinwen Fu was an avid fisherman before coming to UMass Lowell, where he spends most of his time now focused on catching the bad guys—cyber criminals.

Fu, who joined the university’s Department of Computer Science in the fall of 2008, is an expert in network security and privacy, network and computer forensics, information assurance, system reliability and networking quality of service.

Fu says he was excited to join the UMass Lowell community. “The University enjoys a reputation for technological innovation and entrepreneurship,” he says. “The Department of Computer Science has world-class professors with varied research backgrounds and a friendly environment that fosters collaboration.”

Fu and doctoral candidate, Yinjie Chen, demonstrate and explain the technology used to run the "G-Searcher," an indoor surveillance robot designed to help policing efforts in locating hackers and potential terrorists hiding in buildings:

<div><br/></div> <div>Since joining UMass Lowell, he has been awarded five research grants by the National Science Foundation totaling more than $1.1 million, taught undergraduate and graduate courses and mentored students.</div> <div><br/></div> <div>Fu obtained his Ph.D. in computer engineering in 2005 from Texas A&amp;M University and served as assistant professor at Dakota State University in South Dakota from 2005 to 2008. He has published more than 70 papers in journals and books, and has given talks at various technical security conferences including Black Hat. In fall 2011, his <a href="tcm:16-40817" title="Mini Chopper" target="_blank">doctoral students won the silver medal</a> at the ACM Student Research Competition at ACM MobiCom 2011 in Las Vegas. See their design, Hawk:</div> <div><br/></div> <iframe width="486" height="273" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Z2NMAdPs-oE" frameborder="0"/><div><br/></div> <div>Since coming to UMass Lowell, Fu says he has been so busy teaching, writing papers and applying for more grants that he hasn’t had much time for his favorite hobby, and admits he's forgotten some of his fishing techniques.</div> <div><br/></div> <div>“I fished a lot during my stay in Madison, South Dakota,” he says. “There are at least three big lakes in Lake County, where I caught crappie, walleye, white bass and even bullhead catfish and carp, both from shore and boat.”</div> <div><br/></div> <div>But Fu says this summer will be different: “I’m going to do some surf fishing in the Atlantic!”</div></body></html>